So I have two drives that are 4.7 years old according to SMART, and they are at the very bottom of the case.

They work fine, SMART reports no abnormalities.

Now, I checked SMART and these wd 500 gig drives have been in this same condition for at least a year+ now, and it said the temperature was 74c.

I didn't think that was possible for the drive to even be operating at this temperature.

I got my laser temp probe out and I checked the surface and it was 70c.

I don't even understand how the hard drives are working at this temperature. I haven't changed the setup in over a year, and the drive is 4.7 years old.

There is a fan in these 5.25 enclosures, but it's low rpm, I am probably just going to move the enclosures outside the case.

What are your guy's thoughts on the drive temperature? I thought for sure it would have turned itself off at such a high temperature, and it even works too. I ran a benchmark at 74c and it passed (read only benchmark, 90 MB/s reads)Edited by jigglywiggly - 7/15/13 at 1:02pm

What are your guy's thoughts on the drive temperature? I thought for sure it would have turned itself off at such a high temperature, and it even works too. I ran a benchmark at 74c and it passed (read only benchmark, 90 MB/s reads)

Temp is too high. It's bound to suffer premature death at those temps. Since it's hotswap, try removing the HDD and blow some canned air into the hotswap bay as well as clean up the drive to see if that would alleviate the issue.

oh I know it's really hot, but I was just curious on what you guys thought of the HDs still working at this temperature(for about a year). I am definitely going to move the drives.

These two drives are 4.7 years old too, really impressive stuff.

Wow, amazing! Those are temperatures way above the highest I've seen on a HDD. Get some airflow around those HDDs! On many OEM computers (particularly older ones), I am appalled at the poor thermal design of the case (too many ventilation holes all over with air going around in circles). I usually end up putting tape over all the random ventilation holes in the back and sides of the computer, and making it so that air only leaves the case in the back, and enters over the disk drive caddy (and other vents) through the front. This stops the air from going around in circles. The computers then run noticeably quieter and cooler, and HDD temperatures come way down because they are getting all the incoming cool air. Right now, here in a 89°F ambient room temperature, the SMART temperature range of the HDDs on several desktop computers I have here is 93°F - 112°F (34°C - 45°C).
I don't know how that translates to your computer case, and I am aware that systems with lots of heat to remove (powerful overclocked CPUs and GPUs) will need more ventilation; but, I believe that as long as the air is moving from the lower front to the upper back of your case (with minimal shortcutting through the sides), you will have better case temperatures, which should help the HDD temperatures.

P.S. It's OK for the CPU fan to shortcut through the side of the case if it is blowing air out; but if it is pulling air in, it will negate the airflow of the AUX fan, which will increase the HDD temperatures also.

Wow, amazing! Those are temperatures way above the highest I've seen on a HDD. Get some airflow around those HDDs! On many OEM computers (particularly older ones), I am appalled at the poor thermal design of the case (too many ventilation holes all over with air going around in circles). I usually end up putting tape over all the random ventilation holes in the back and sides of the computer, and making it so that air only leaves the case in the back, and enters over the disk drive caddy (and other vents) through the front. This stops the air from going around in circles. The computers then run noticeably quieter and cooler, and HDD temperatures come way down because they are getting all the incoming cool air. Right now, here in a 89°F ambient room temperature, the SMART temperature range of the HDDs on several desktop computers I have here is 93°F - 112°F (34°C - 45°C).

I've seen higher (Western Digital My Book 500GB - 80C with a heavy file copy load). Now those were really poorly designed. I've had 3 of those that died after a little over a year and I had no idea what was causing the failures. It was only by chance that I saw the temps on the My Book (had CDI open to look at SSD stats) but that was long after I've switched to a central file server.